Trump’s wall makes hostages of us all | Editorial

President Donald Trump speaks from the Oval Office of the White House as he gives a prime-time address about border security Tuesday, Jan. 8, 2018

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It helps to remember that the border wall, which the president has used as his justification to shut down the federal government, was never meant to be anything other than a memory trick for an undisciplined mind.

President Trump’s earliest political advisors invented the concept of a border wall as a “mnemonic device” back in 2014, just to keep candidate Trump from wandering into a thicket of disassociated ramblings that nobody could understand, especially when he launched a stream-of-consciousness oration about his real estate accomplishments.

One advisor, Sam Nunberg, told theNew York TimesSaturday that he and Roger Stone meant the wall to be used only as a tool to remind Trump to talk tough about immigration.

But what started out as a symbol has become a dangerous fixation, one responsible for mothballing massive sectors of our government and keeping 800,000 federal employees at home without paychecks – despite Congress steadfastly refusing to fund his wall, despite consistentpublic opposition, and despite overwhelming evidence that the impact on drug trafficking would benegligible.

Yet here we are, hostages to a presidential brain spasm – or temper tantrum, as Senate Minority LeaderChuck Schumersuggested – and fated to be horrified bystanders to a humanitarian crisis of Trump’s own creation.

The master strategist went on TV Tuesday not to share his solutions for immigration policy, but to traffic in the samefearmongeringthat he’s using to justify putting Americans out of work.

Ask yourself: Has a president ever usedfalsehoods, invented a crisis, and imposed a shutdown to bypass the legislative process and hold a government hostage?

If the president has such faith in his ability to feel the pulse of the electorate and negotiate deals, why can’t he convince Congress to invest $5.7 billion in his wall? And why hasn’t his agenda changed since the midterms, when his yammering about marauding migrants crashing the gates actually resulted in his party losing two House seats along the Mexican border?

Trump will not provide those answers, and his refusal to concede defeat or govern in good faith will undoubtedly lead tomore pain.

Never mind that the Democrats have offered $1.3 billion for border security – including enhanced surveillance and fortified fencing. He is content to blame Democrats for this shutdown fiasco, apparently unaware that the vast majority of Americans refute any border “crisis” and two-thirds say he should not close the government for his policy goals.

It was last May that the Federal Reserve Board noted that4 in 10Americans cannot afford a $400 emergency expense, and now that emergency has landed on furloughed workers with both feet. For many of them, bank balances will red-line when Friday passes without a paycheck. They haven’t been paid since late December, and if their credit cards aren’t maxed out, they’ll be borrowing off relatives and wondering how they’ll afford food and rent and a tank of gas.

This is not what theovermatched White Houseexpected, but sooner or later you’d hope they figure it out: This is no longer a debate over a wall, it’s merely the latest example of a president’s inability to preside over a functional government and negotiate policy at the same time, and that carries a tragic resonance. We’re inundated with the same desperate flailing nonsense linked to any emperor without clothes.

As Rep.Tom Malinowski(D-7th Dist) put it, “We do not need to build a monument to the president’s ego that anyone with a ladder could get over, and that would make America look fearful and foolish.”

Sadly, we are already beyond that point in the tantrum presidency, which is occupied by a reckless vandal who nourishes himself on resentment and revenge.